Conrail N6A Transfer Caboose 18040
May 28, 2021 17:30:03 GMT -8
valenciajim, The Ferro Kid, and 25 more like this
Post by cr9617 on May 28, 2021 17:30:03 GMT -8
Hello all. Just wanted to share some photos of this caboose I just finished.
I had planned and researched this project probably about a year and a half ago, however I had been putting it off because the weathering involved was somewhat intimidating. You might be asking yourself, why choose such a difficult subject? Well, I chose 18040 simply because it was one of the few caboose I was able to find good photos of both sides. It seemed to have spent a bit of time in the Lancaster PA area and was well documented. So when I picked up an old Custom Brass model at a show in April I figured it was time to bite the bullet.
Conrail N6A 18040 by cr9617, on Flickr
Conrail N6A 18040 by cr9617, on Flickr
Conrail N6A 18040 by cr9617, on Flickr
Conrail N6A 18040 by cr9617, on Flickr
Conrail N6A 18040 by cr9617, on Flickr
18040d by cr9617, on Flickr
18040c by cr9617, on Flickr
Out of the box the model is nicely done, but it's pretty much devoid of details. Conrail removed the roof walk and ladders, so I started by doing that. They also moved the fuel tank outside to the deck, so I scratch built one out of styrene and fabbed up the piping from brass wire, styrene and some white metal pipe elbows I salvaged from a Details West air dryer kit. I also used some 0.005 styrene to simulate the patch on the side of the body where the fuel fill was and the plate on the handrails. Conrail reinforced the side sill on some of these, so I replicated that also with 0.005 styrene. I added rivets where appropriate along the sill, roof and steps using Archer rivet decals. I replaced the simple wire door handles with Precision Scale EMD cab door handles. The markers are from Cal Scale with MV amber lenses. Details West flag holders were added to all four corners of the body.
These cars were built from old 40' boxcars so the draft gear was a large cast looking piece. I wasn't able to find anything suitable so I ended up using some Moloco gear I already had on hand. It's not accurate but it looks the part and is better than the large Kadee stuff that was on there. I scratch built the coupler cut levers from wire and used Plano brackets to support them. Most Conrail cabooses, including this one, had a bracket welded to the center of the cut lever with a chain going up to the railing that allowed the conductor or brakeman to lift the lever without getting down. The smallest chain I was able to find was 40 LPI which was still way to big for this application. After a little research and a visit to my local military modeling shop I was pointed in the direction of photo etched anchor chain for ship models. In this case 1/400 anchor chain was exactly what I was looking for. It's hard to see in the photos but I felt it was an important detail to include. The brake valve on the end platform was just a wire bent at a right angle from the factory so I cut that off and soldered a brass freight car air hose to the pipe and cut the "rubber" hose part off and bent the handle straight.
The underframe on these brass models is basically the flat underside of the deck/floor with a roughly 1/4" square box tube running the length of the car for support and truck mounting. The only details under there were the reservoir and air cylinder. After careful consideration I decided to leave it as is since it would have required major modification to add the necessary underframe details, so all I added was the missing triple valve. The trucks are Athearn Genesis caboose trucks with the generator. I found it odd that both trucks in the package had the generator. The few I have seen in photos and real life only had one generator, just like this caboose. I may be wrong, I dunno, I'm not too familiar with the setup. Anyway, I cut off the second generator and smoothed the sideframe.
20210503_191138 by cr9617, on Flickr
The model comes painted gold so I stripped it with lacquer thinner before starting any of the work. It was primed with Tamiya grey primer and painted with Tru Color Conrail blue with a few drops of white added. Decals are a mix of Mount Vernon shops and custom decals from Bill Brillinger at Precison Design Co. He did an excellent job on all the small data and the chalked on "snap krackle pop express". The roof was weathered using chipping fluid and black over a brown base color. I used oil paints to first apply a white and then burnt umber filter to the model to start the weathering. I then went ahead and applied all the chipping using Vallejo German black brown. When that dried I used AK rust streaks and streaking grime to streak and blend the chips. I then used AK NATO vehicle wash to bring out all the details and add some depth. Somewhere along the way someone attempted to patch the rust using blue spray paint on the prototype, so I replicated that using a dark blue watercolor pencil over the previously applied chipping which was then blended using water and damp brush. I drybrushed all the horizontal surfaces and the upper portions of the body with a very light blue to get a little variation to the fade. I couldn't tell if deck was black or blue, but my research showed that it could be either. There didn't really seem to be a standard, so I chose to go with the peeling black paint, it just seemed to match the look of the caboose. A light dusting of grime from an airbrush rounded out the weathering. I decided to add the EOT device shown on the platform in the one photo because I thought it was a neat detail even though that style was no longer being used in the era I model. I actually have a the real thing in my garage so it was super simple to measure and make out some styrene, wire and another MV lens. I added a couple of switch brooms to the other side, cause well why not.
20210509_174556 by cr9617, on Flickr
20210516_100022 by cr9617, on Flickr
I had planned and researched this project probably about a year and a half ago, however I had been putting it off because the weathering involved was somewhat intimidating. You might be asking yourself, why choose such a difficult subject? Well, I chose 18040 simply because it was one of the few caboose I was able to find good photos of both sides. It seemed to have spent a bit of time in the Lancaster PA area and was well documented. So when I picked up an old Custom Brass model at a show in April I figured it was time to bite the bullet.
Conrail N6A 18040 by cr9617, on FlickrConrail N6A 18040 by cr9617, on FlickrConrail N6A 18040 by cr9617, on FlickrConrail N6A 18040 by cr9617, on FlickrConrail N6A 18040 by cr9617, on Flickr18040d by cr9617, on Flickr18040c by cr9617, on FlickrOut of the box the model is nicely done, but it's pretty much devoid of details. Conrail removed the roof walk and ladders, so I started by doing that. They also moved the fuel tank outside to the deck, so I scratch built one out of styrene and fabbed up the piping from brass wire, styrene and some white metal pipe elbows I salvaged from a Details West air dryer kit. I also used some 0.005 styrene to simulate the patch on the side of the body where the fuel fill was and the plate on the handrails. Conrail reinforced the side sill on some of these, so I replicated that also with 0.005 styrene. I added rivets where appropriate along the sill, roof and steps using Archer rivet decals. I replaced the simple wire door handles with Precision Scale EMD cab door handles. The markers are from Cal Scale with MV amber lenses. Details West flag holders were added to all four corners of the body.
These cars were built from old 40' boxcars so the draft gear was a large cast looking piece. I wasn't able to find anything suitable so I ended up using some Moloco gear I already had on hand. It's not accurate but it looks the part and is better than the large Kadee stuff that was on there. I scratch built the coupler cut levers from wire and used Plano brackets to support them. Most Conrail cabooses, including this one, had a bracket welded to the center of the cut lever with a chain going up to the railing that allowed the conductor or brakeman to lift the lever without getting down. The smallest chain I was able to find was 40 LPI which was still way to big for this application. After a little research and a visit to my local military modeling shop I was pointed in the direction of photo etched anchor chain for ship models. In this case 1/400 anchor chain was exactly what I was looking for. It's hard to see in the photos but I felt it was an important detail to include. The brake valve on the end platform was just a wire bent at a right angle from the factory so I cut that off and soldered a brass freight car air hose to the pipe and cut the "rubber" hose part off and bent the handle straight.
The underframe on these brass models is basically the flat underside of the deck/floor with a roughly 1/4" square box tube running the length of the car for support and truck mounting. The only details under there were the reservoir and air cylinder. After careful consideration I decided to leave it as is since it would have required major modification to add the necessary underframe details, so all I added was the missing triple valve. The trucks are Athearn Genesis caboose trucks with the generator. I found it odd that both trucks in the package had the generator. The few I have seen in photos and real life only had one generator, just like this caboose. I may be wrong, I dunno, I'm not too familiar with the setup. Anyway, I cut off the second generator and smoothed the sideframe.
20210503_191138 by cr9617, on FlickrThe model comes painted gold so I stripped it with lacquer thinner before starting any of the work. It was primed with Tamiya grey primer and painted with Tru Color Conrail blue with a few drops of white added. Decals are a mix of Mount Vernon shops and custom decals from Bill Brillinger at Precison Design Co. He did an excellent job on all the small data and the chalked on "snap krackle pop express". The roof was weathered using chipping fluid and black over a brown base color. I used oil paints to first apply a white and then burnt umber filter to the model to start the weathering. I then went ahead and applied all the chipping using Vallejo German black brown. When that dried I used AK rust streaks and streaking grime to streak and blend the chips. I then used AK NATO vehicle wash to bring out all the details and add some depth. Somewhere along the way someone attempted to patch the rust using blue spray paint on the prototype, so I replicated that using a dark blue watercolor pencil over the previously applied chipping which was then blended using water and damp brush. I drybrushed all the horizontal surfaces and the upper portions of the body with a very light blue to get a little variation to the fade. I couldn't tell if deck was black or blue, but my research showed that it could be either. There didn't really seem to be a standard, so I chose to go with the peeling black paint, it just seemed to match the look of the caboose. A light dusting of grime from an airbrush rounded out the weathering. I decided to add the EOT device shown on the platform in the one photo because I thought it was a neat detail even though that style was no longer being used in the era I model. I actually have a the real thing in my garage so it was super simple to measure and make out some styrene, wire and another MV lens. I added a couple of switch brooms to the other side, cause well why not.
20210509_174556 by cr9617, on Flickr20210516_100022 by cr9617, on Flickr
